A few of our favorite things for all interests, ages and shopping budgets — and they’re LOCAL!

A special extra in this week’s Sequim Gazette — our 28-page 2014 HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE.

You can also read it online here.

It is also included in the Thanksgiving Day edition of our sister newspaper, Peninsula Daily News.

In addition, SMALL BUSINESS SATURDAY is coming this weekend.

The campaign encourages people to take advantage of local, independent shops, showing that a concerted effort to do so boosts a community’s economy.

Please, shop locally as much as you can for your Christmas gifts this year.

Sequim offers local shopping at unique boutiques.

As you’ll find in our Holiday Gift Guide, you can get fantastic gifts locally — and you’re supporting the small businesses that uphold our community, employ our families, chip in toward our taxes and support our youth sports teams, schools, arts and other worthy causes.

If you want to crank up your stress level for the holidays, go to Silverdale and shop in its congested mall and big-boxes.

If you don’t mind being cold and impersonal, knock off your gift list online.

But if you’re looking for a festive ambiance, if you want gifts you can’t get elsewhere, if you want your gifts and your experience of buying them to have extra meaning, and if you want to add to your local economy instead of subtract from it, shop the North Olympic Peninsula’s local stores and craft fairs.

Surprisingly, you might find better prices.

Not surprisingly, you might find better quality, better customer service and shorter lines.

Money you spend on the Internet or out of town leaves our community.

It’s an economic drain for our Peninsula.

But every dollar you give a local merchant stays here and is recirculated, usually multiple times.

Cumulatively, that maintains and improves the number and variety of local jobs, as well as of local businesses.